Across Africa, governments are moving to tax the booming online gambling industry harder driven by a combination of soaring addiction rates and depleted state finances. The industry, meanwhile, is fighting back, warning that higher taxes will simply push players underground.
The scale of the shift is most visible in South Africa, by far the continent’s largest gambling market. Two thirds of South African adults now engage in online gambling, according to the National Gambling Board — up from 30% in 2017. Punters wagered a record 1.5 trillion rand in the 2024/25 financial year. The government has proposed a new national 20% tax on online gambling profits that it says would more than double annual tax revenues from the sector, from 4.8 billion rand to around 10 billion rand. The bill is expected to go before lawmakers this year, with the final proposal due in February 2027.
The human cost behind those numbers is stark. Distress calls to South Africa’s national gambling helpline surged by more than two thirds over the past year. The South African Responsible Gambling Foundation treated more than 4,600 people for addiction last year, up from 2,600 the year before. Sibongile Simelane-Quntana, the foundation’s executive director, says most South Africans are not gambling for fun. “We’re trying to gamble ourselves to prosperity,” she told Reuters — a phrase that captures the desperation driving many players in an economy defined by high unemployment and hardship.
Two anonymous South African addicts Reuters spoke to both said economic pressure had pushed them into gambling. In Senegal, a 37-year-old man who identified himself only by his initials described a pattern that will be familiar to many addicts — starting small, escalating, stealing from his employer to fund his habit, losing his job, paying back the money to avoid prosecution, then relapsing three months ago after hearing a neighbour mention a new instant betting app. He has been downloading and deleting the app repeatedly ever since. “When people ask me where my money goes, I can’t explain and I have to lie,” he said. “It hurts me.”
The gambling industry is not taking the proposed tax increase quietly. Betting firms are lobbying hard against it, arguing that heavier taxes on legitimate operators will drive players to illegal sites rather than reducing overall gambling. The South African Bookmakers’ Association, representing about a quarter of the country’s 400 bookmakers, says the combined effect of provincial, national and value-added taxes could push total levies on profits to 38.5% — a level it argues would make legal operators uncompetitive against unregulated alternatives. “Go and address the illegal market,” says association CEO Sean Coleman, arguing that cracking down on illegal sites would be more effective than taxing legal ones harder.
South Africa is not alone. Malawi and Zimbabwe have both introduced similar tax hikes on gambling profits this year. Senegal announced additional gambling taxation as part of its economic recovery plan, though a Senegalese addiction counsellor warned that tax alone would achieve little “if there is no policy in place to support these players who suffer from addiction.”
It is a tension that runs through the entire debate — governments want the revenue and the optics of being seen to act, the industry wants lighter regulation, and the people most at risk are left caught between the two.
